Who They Could've Had: Sacramento Kings

[Kurosawa0]

I always find it interesting to look back at the draft choices for the perennial bad teams and the players they missed on. The Kings last made the playoffs in 2006, so I thought it made sense to start there.

2006:

1st round took Quincy Douby with the 19th pick. Missed on Rajon Rondo and Kyle Lowry

2007:

1st round took Spencer Hawes with the 10th pick. Was eventually traded to Philly in a package for Samuel Dalembert.

2008:

1st round took Jason Thompson with the 12th pick. Missed on Roy Hibbert, JaVale McGee, Serge Ibaka and George Hill.

2nd round took Sean Singletary with the 42nd pick. Missed on Goran Dragić.

2009:

1st round took Tyreke Evans with the 4th pick. Missed on Ricky Rubio and Stephen Curry.

2nd round took Jeff Pendergraph with the 31st pick. Missed on DeJuan Blair, Marcus Thornton, Chase Budinger and Danny Green.

2010:

1st round took DeMarcus Cousins with the 5th pick. Greg Monroe and Paul George were also on the board.

2nd round took Hassan Whiteside with the 33rd pick. Missed on Landry Fields and Lance Stephenson.

2011:

1st round took Jimmer Fredette with the 10th pick. Missed on Klay Thompson, Kawhi Leonard, Nikola Vučević, Tobias Harris and Kenneth Faried.

2nd round took Tyler Honeycutt with the 31st pick. Missed on Chandler Parsons. They also took Isaiah Thomas with the 60th pick.

2012:

1st round took Thomas Robinson with the 5th pick. Missed on Damian Lillard, Harrison Barnes and Andre Drummond.

2nd round took Orlando Johnson.

So, out of 13 picks the Kings landed 2 (maybe three if you count Spencer Hawes) really good value players in Cousins and Thomas. Now, they wouldn't have had all of these potential stars because getting them would've changed their draft positions, but it's like when I did this for Charlotte, missing year after year after year is how these teams end up being so awful.

[KyleKong]

Can't blame them, can't blame any team for missing good players on draft night actually.

All these players seemed better before they went into the NBA. :confusedshrug:

[Kurosawa0]

Can't blame them, can't blame any team for missing good players on draft night actually.

All these players seemed better before they went into the NBA. :confusedshrug:

You just can't miss year after year though. Miami missed on Russell Westbrook, Kevin Love and Brook Lopez when they took Michael Beasley. The thing is they got Dwyane Wade right in 2003. Teams like Sacramento are the equivalent of taking Beasley and then someone like T. J. Ford over Wade in 2003.

[TheReturn]

The Jimmer pick is just :facepalm worthy

[andremiller07]

Other than the Cousins pick all of them have turned out terrible.

[L.Kizzle]

1985 took Joe Kleine at 6. Chris Mullin was taken 7th, Karl Malone 13th, Joe Dumars 18th.

1987 once again with the 6th pick took Kenny Smith. Kevin Johnson was 7th, Reggie Miller 11th.

1989, had the top pick, to the had their choice and went with Never Nervous Pervis. Tim Hardaway and Shawn Kemp weren't even lottery picks.

1991, at 3 took Billy Owens ... Mutombo and Steve Smith were taken next.

I'm done, they've picked some bums. I'm at 1995. Corliss Williamson, Bobby Hurley, Walt Williams, Brian Grant ...

[iamgine]

I always find it interesting to look back at the draft choices for the perennial bad teams and the players they missed on. The Kings last made the playoffs in 2006, so I thought it made sense to start there.

2006:

1st round took Quincy Douby with the 19th pick. Missed on Rajon Rondo and Kyle Lowry

2007:

1st round took Spencer Hawes with the 10th pick. Was eventually traded to Philly in a package for Samuel Dalembert.

2008:

1st round took Jason Thompson with the 12th pick. Missed on Roy Hibbert, JaVale McGee, Serge Ibaka and George Hill.

2nd round took Sean Singletary with the 42nd pick. Missed on Goran Dragić.

2009:

1st round took Tyreke Evans with the 4th pick. Missed on Ricky Rubio and Stephen Curry.

2nd round took Jeff Pendergraph with the 31st pick. Missed on DeJuan Blair, Marcus Thornton, Chase Budinger and Danny Green.

2010:

1st round took DeMarcus Cousins with the 5th pick. Greg Monroe and Paul George were also on the board.

2nd round took Hassan Whiteside with the 33rd pick. Missed on Landry Fields and Lance Stephenson.

2011:

1st round took Jimmer Fredette with the 10th pick. Missed on Klay Thompson, Kawhi Leonard, Nikola Vučević, Tobias Harris and Kenneth Faried.

2nd round took Tyler Honeycutt with the 31st pick. Missed on Chandler Parsons. They also took Isaiah Thomas with the 60th pick.

2012:

1st round took Thomas Robinson with the 5th pick. Missed on Damian Lillard, Harrison Barnes and Andre Drummond.

2nd round took Orlando Johnson.

So, out of 13 picks the Kings landed 2 (maybe three if you count Spencer Hawes) really good value players in Cousins and Thomas. Now, they wouldn't have had all of these potential stars because getting them would've changed their draft positions, but it's like when I did this for Charlotte, missing year after year after year is how these teams end up being so awful.
I don't see many game changer such as Wade on the board though. Maybe Curry/Paul George/Lillard? Even those are a maybe. Had they picked Kawhi Leonard or Danny Green, not much would've changed.

[Kurosawa0]

I don't see many game changer such as Wade on the board though. Maybe Curry/Paul George/Lillard? Even those are a maybe. Had they picked Kawhi Leonard or Danny Green, not much would've changed.

It's not one pick really. It's about missing over and over and over. Say they had got Stephen Curry, Kawhi Leonard and Cousins. We'd be talking about the Kings being one of the best young teams in the league.

It just shows how the draft is so, so important to a rebuilding team. Catching a player like Wade is mostly luck, but what can you say about an organization that misses almost with every pick?

[Trentknicks]

The Knicks were horrible for 8 years or so, but only had one bright spot in David Lee.

It still puzzles me how they had young talent like Evans, Cousins and even T Rob and still are unable to show any sense of serious progression.

[qrich]

Still not as bad as the Clippers.

Let's start in 04:

First Round: Shaun Livingston at #4. Clippers originally had #2, but traded down to pick up a 2nd round selection for Lionel Chalmers. Speculation had it, at that point, the Magic were going to take Okafor at #1 allowing Dwight to drop to #2, but Charlotte wanted Emeka and told Orlando if they let Okafor drop to them, they would not mess up the Francis-McGrady trade in the expansion draft.

Andre Iguodala was picked after him, would have been a great fit. A foursome of Iggy-Maggette-Brand-Kaman could have been sexy. Josh & JR Smith were two other names. Looking back, Kevin Martin would have been great as well as Jameer.

In 2005, we had the great Yaroslav Korolev. I wanted Antoine Wright, but it would not have been any different. Danny Granger was the guy others wanted, and he was right there. Almost anyone that has played in the association would have been great, compared to Korolev.

In 2006, Clippers had no first round pick as a result of the trade that netted Maggette, ages prior. Paul Davis and Guillermo Diaz were decent 2nd round picks. Diaz could have panned out and been a great instant scorer off the bench, but it just did not.

2007 was the year of the old man, taking Al Thornton. Local kids Nick Young & Arron Afflalo went after Al. Same with international flavors of Belli and Rudy. Jared Jordan in Round 2 was a good pick, at the time.

In 2008, Clippers had the best draft, ever. Eric Gordon at #7, DeAndre at #35 and trading a future 2nd for Mike Taylor. Not much can be said.

I'm tired of typing this shit. Look it up yourself :oldlol:

[iamgine]

It's not one pick really. It's about missing over and over and over. Say they had got Stephen Curry, Kawhi Leonard and Cousins. We'd be talking about the Kings being one of the best young teams in the league.

It just shows how the draft is so, so important to a rebuilding team. Catching a player like Wade is mostly luck, but what can you say about an organization that misses almost with every pick?
That only works cause of Curry. Say they got Danny Green, Kawhi Leonard and Cousins. They still would be mediocre even though that's 3 great picks. Perhaps 2nd round exit team at best. The most important is that one pick. Preferably a good big guy but a superstar wing is okay too. The rest can be acquired through free agency and cap space management.

[I<3NBA]

Can't blame them, can't blame any team for missing good players on draft night actually.

All these players seemed better before they went into the NBA. :confusedshrug:
why can't everyone understand that it's not about drafting, it's about developing players?

that's how San Antonio consistently produces good players that they took late in the draft. they have a great development program.

[Kurosawa0]

That only works cause of Curry. Say they got Danny Green, Kawhi Leonard and Cousins. They still would be mediocre even though that's 3 great picks. Perhaps 2nd round exit team at best. The most important is that one pick. Preferably a good big guy but a superstar wing is okay too. The rest can be acquired through free agency and cap space management.

Any team in a place like Sacramento can't use free agency for anything other than adding pieces to a core. Unless you're a destination city, you have to get your core through the draft.

To me a team to look at is Indiana. They didn't always make the best picks, but usually the picks they've made haven't been bad. You can't always get the best player available, but you can't keep ending up getting basically nothing.

[iamgine]

Any team in a place like Sacramento can't use free agency for anything other than adding pieces to a core. Unless you're a destination city, you have to get your core through the draft.

To me a team to look at is Indiana. They didn't always make the best picks, but usually the picks they've made haven't been bad. You can't always get the best player available, but you can't keep ending up getting basically nothing.
Indiana has that "one" player they could build around. Paul George. Replace him with Danny Green, and they'd be mediocre for a long time. Besides, two of their core are from free agency. George hill and David West are big reasons for their success.

[Kurosawa0]

Indiana has that "one" player they could build around. Paul George. Replace him with Danny Green, and they'd be mediocre for a long time. Besides, two of their core are from free agency. George hill and David West are big reasons for their success.

I don't really get what you're trying to argue. Are you saying Sacramento isn't to blame for being consistently horrible? If you continue to miss in the draft year in and year out then you start to have a common denominator effect.

[iamgine]

I don't really get what you're trying to argue. Are you saying Sacramento isn't to blame for being consistently horrible? If you continue to miss in the draft year in and year out then you start to have a common denominator effect.
You list so many players they missed on. Drafting most of those players won't really make much difference. As an analogy, it's better to miss all the drafting and have a chance to draft someone they can build around next season than get a core of "good players" and be mediocre for a long time.

[Kurosawa0]

You list so many players they missed on. Drafting most of those players won't really make much difference. As an analogy, it's better to miss all the drafting and have a chance to draft someone they can build around next season than get a core of "good players" and be mediocre for a long time.

See, it's not about any one pick though. It's about missing almost all the time. Of course getting a Kevin Durant or a LeBron James is the ideal, but you can't control that. You can somewhat control making decent draft choices. Besides just being fun to look back at, I don't think it's wrong to say that a team like Charlotte or Sacramento missing on draft picks every year stems from incompetence.

To me it's no surprise that teams like Indiana, San Antonio, Houston etc, that draft well even with marginal players, seem to do better when they get talent. If Chandler Parsons goes to Charlotte we don't even know who he is. If Kwahi Leonard goes to Sacramento he might not be any different than Kidd-Gilchrist.

There's no way looking back at that draft history that you can't see a better situation for the Kings than they currently have. Even if they only had say George Hill, Klay Thompson and Andre Drummond, they wouldn't be good. Agreed. Yet that's a much better foundation for something. If they got an Andrew Wiggins or Julius Randle on top of that then everyone would be excited about the Kings. If Andrew Wiggins goes to the Kings for real this next year everyone will be thinking "Damn, that sucks for him."

[iamgine]

See, it's not about any one pick though. It's about missing almost all the time. Of course getting a Kevin Durant or a LeBron James is the ideal, but you can't control that. You can somewhat control making decent draft choices. Besides just being fun to look back at, I don't think it's wrong to say that a team like Charlotte or Sacramento missing on draft picks every year stems from incompetence.

To me it's no surprise that teams like Indiana, San Antonio, Houston etc, that draft well even with marginal players, seem to do better when they get talent. If Chandler Parsons goes to Charlotte we don't even know who he is. If Kwahi Leonard goes to Sacramento he might not be any different than Kidd-Gilchrist.

There's no way looking back at that draft history that you can't see a better situation for the Kings than they currently have. Even if they only had say George Hill, Klay Thompson and Andre Drummond, they wouldn't be good. Agreed. Yet that's a much better foundation for something. If they got an Andrew Wiggins or Julius Randle on top of that then everyone would be excited about the Kings. If Andrew Wiggins goes to the Kings for real this next year everyone will be thinking "Damn, that sucks for him."
Houston traded for their franchise players. SAS without Tim Duncan is not pretty at all.

Decent foundation is not the first step. The better foundation moves you down the draft and makes it way harder to draft that one player. The first step is getting that one player to build around. Then you can talk about getting other building blocks. Thus it's better to suck hard and get Wiggins than consistently drafting good players.

[Kurosawa0]

Houston traded for their franchise players. SAS without Tim Duncan is not pretty at all.

Decent foundation is not the first step. The better foundation moves you down the draft and makes it way harder to draft that one player. The first step is getting that one player to build around. Then you can talk about getting other building blocks. Thus it's better to suck hard and get Wiggins than consistently drafting good players.

The thing is that getting a star player is so random. I just don't understand what you're arguing. Are you saying you prefer incompetent drafting unless its an obvious star?

[DukeDelonte13]

1. scouting department

2. player development

3. luck



To me its all about those three factors in order of importance. Some teams spends gobs of money on their scouting, others do not.

[Brokenbeat]

I always find it interesting to look back at the draft choices for the perennial bad teams and the players they missed on. The Kings last made the playoffs in 2006, so I thought it made sense to start there.

2006:

1st round took Quincy Douby with the 19th pick. Missed on Rajon Rondo and Kyle Lowry

2007:

1st round took Spencer Hawes with the 10th pick. Was eventually traded to Philly in a package for Samuel Dalembert.

2008:

1st round took Jason Thompson with the 12th pick. Missed on Roy Hibbert, JaVale McGee, Serge Ibaka and George Hill.

2nd round took Sean Singletary with the 42nd pick. Missed on Goran Dragić.

2009:

1st round took Tyreke Evans with the 4th pick. Missed on Ricky Rubio and Stephen Curry.

2nd round took Jeff Pendergraph with the 31st pick. Missed on DeJuan Blair, Marcus Thornton, Chase Budinger and Danny Green.

2010:

1st round took DeMarcus Cousins with the 5th pick. Greg Monroe and Paul George were also on the board.

2nd round took Hassan Whiteside with the 33rd pick. Missed on Landry Fields and Lance Stephenson.

2011:

1st round took Jimmer Fredette with the 10th pick. Missed on Klay Thompson, Kawhi Leonard, Nikola Vučević, Tobias Harris and Kenneth Faried.

2nd round took Tyler Honeycutt with the 31st pick. Missed on Chandler Parsons. They also took Isaiah Thomas with the 60th pick.

2012:

1st round took Thomas Robinson with the 5th pick. Missed on Damian Lillard, Harrison Barnes and Andre Drummond.

2nd round took Orlando Johnson.

So, out of 13 picks the Kings landed 2 (maybe three if you count Spencer Hawes) really good value players in Cousins and Thomas. Now, they wouldn't have had all of these potential stars because getting them would've changed their draft positions, but it's like when I did this for Charlotte, missing year after year after year is how these teams end up being so awful.

I actually kinda like that pick. :confusedshrug:

[bdreason]

Only obviously bad picks were Fredette and Robinson. I didn't think either of these guys were going to do anything at the NBA level.

[DukeDelonte13]

Only obviously bad picks were Fredette and Robinson. I didn't think either of these guys were going to do anything at the NBA level.


Jimmer was so hyped it wasn't funny. I didn't buy in but a lot of people really really like him.

[3peated]

most of the player sthey missed wouldn't have gotten the proper coaching and spotlight if drafted by the kings, this post would be the other way around saying they missed DMC or someone else.

[El Kabong]

Jimmer was so hyped it wasn't funny. I didn't buy in but a lot of people really really like him.
I was so glad that the Kings took him 2 picks before the Jazz since I was worried they would bow to the media and fan pressure and draft him.

[bigkingsfan]

They took Jimmer to fill up their seat, it didn't work out so well.